UK Defence Forum

Land 159

https://www.defence.gov.au/project/leth ... bat-system
https://www.nioaland159.com.au/

Surprised at the choice of .300 Blackout for the round to be used with the Sig Sauer MCX. Do any other countries use this calibre in their main line military as against SF? Regardless an impressive selection of weapons chosen.

Lord Jim wrote: ↑03 Oct 2022, 16:46 Surprised at the choice of .300 Blackout for the round to be used with the Sig Sauer MCX. Do any other countries use this calibre in their main line military as against SF? Regardless an impressive selection of weapons chosen.

Yes, that's an interesting one. I'm not hundred percent sure who gets the PDW, to be honest. The EF-88 is still the main assault rifle for the vast majority, and I'm sure the full-blown SF units will still do their own thing if they feel like it, so who knows.

When I think about it and it doesn't hurt when doing so, I like both platforms Bushmaster and Hwakei. I wonder if we could pay back Australia for choosing the Hunter Class, as well as fortifying our recent agreement with Australia and the US by purchasing both platforms as a quick solution to our dying MRV(P) programme and get Thales Australia to build a plant in the UK for any exports there may be in Europe in addition to the UK orders.

That's the thing though. I don't think you should try to do these things and expect exports. The market is too crowded for that. Exports are simply gravy. Do it because you want to build and modify your own vehicles to your own specifications and evolve capabilities. It's not that expensive, really. Australia has managed it – as have lots of other countries. You just have to start and have a slow rolling design and production over a couple of vehicle types and a 15-20 year life span before you start the whole process again. That's all we've done. If you force the factory to rely on exports to fill the gap in production orders, you're really just rolling the dice to see when your factory goes bust. It has to be managed.

Land Forces 2022: Australian Ties to US Missile Programmes
HiMARS, PrSM and JAGM all in Play
https://monch.com/land-forces-2022-aust ... rogrammes/

Australian P-8 arrives in Sigonella, Italy to to spend time conducting patrols on behalf of NATO in the Mediterranean:
https://news.defence.gov.au/media/media ... iterranean

Handy...

Mercator wrote: ↑10 Oct 2022, 23:19 Handy...

If they do that it will be good for all other defenc projects, but r mains to be seen if they wil continue the other part objects anyway

But from Marles rumblings over the past few days somehow I don’t think defence is going to come out the other end very well

I still don't think he'll change much. But I guess we'll see how wrong I can be.

Defence eyes $5bn corvette-style warship fleet

https://amp.theaustralian.com.au/nation ... 5456e7ff15

The Australian can reveal 10 to 12 of the corvette-style ships, armed with missiles, canons, and potentially anti-submarine torpedoes, are being considered for a total price tag of about $5bn-$6bn.

Do they really think these will get here before the Hunters. They talk about the coalition stuffing defence with delays

Better off going T31 to replace the Anzacs, 6more Hunters in AWD role forget Spanish AWD well the Hobarts to NZ

Can't read the article but they included picture of German corvettes, presumably designed to operate in the shallow waters of the Baltic. Not sure if this indicates a German shipbuilder rather than Navantia?

When PLAN started expanding from brown water to green and then blue water navy, they initially started building approx 50 Corvettes IIRC, mainly for ASW role near the Chinese maiinland. I don't know how deep the East China Sea and South China Sea are - I am presuming because of the numerous small islands / reefs / shallows in the latter, that these PLAN corvetttes were ideally suited to their littoral environment.

As others have said before, when discussing why the RN doesn't field such ships, just because they suit the Germans and Chinese, doesn't mean they would suit the RAN.

I know Australia does have huge long coastline bordering several oceans and seas. From what I remember from watching wildlife programmes, that the sea level drops off very quickly not far out, with some exceptions if course e.g. Great Barrier Reef.

So although I could the merits of numerous small ships, along with any associated UAV / USV / USUV, being useful to cover such a long coastline, I am not sure they would be as suited to deeper waters around Australia?

IIRC, one of the original requirements from the Australian collaboration in what became the T21 (and the reason that it ended up getting sonar) was for a smaller shallow-water vessel for operations around the "East Indian" islands (the sonar was for detecting FACs, not submarines), so I guess a modern "corvette" would be for more of the same.

Well there is a large number of islands between Australia and the South China Sea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea etc. maybe a shallower draft corvette would be useful there, better to keep the enemy at range than let them up to home waters.

Sometimes it can be confusing in that certain media will promote their own agendas in regard to what Australia should acquire in regards to military purchases e.g. The Australian ,The Strategist

The Australians know from history the importance of the Malay archipelago to there defence as that is were the attacks on Darwin were launched from in ww2. Could corvettes be used there probably, though as the reconfiguration of the us marine corps is largely are defending such places by pushing out an air and surface bubble perhaps aligning more with that strategy maybe a better direction especially as I believe the us marines are setting up shop in Darwin.

Zeno wrote: ↑12 Oct 2022, 22:14 Sometimes it can be confusing in that certain media will promote their own agendas in regard to what Australia should acquire in regards to military purchases e.g. The Australian ,The Strategist

Yes, I wouldn't read too much into some of these stories. The guy in the next cubicle is probably advocating B-21s and the guy next to him is furiously typing up his "Second Look at Aircraft Carriers" post, now that there is a hint of a little extra money.

A lot of the time, frankly, I think they do these articles just to get eyeballs on their thinktank's website, rather than any considered organisational strategy. Always fun to build wishlists though.

Small, SSM armed, fast attack craft – possibly unmanned – that, I could get behind!

Still a bit more informed than many journalists who are more comfortable in gossip columns lol ,some of the U.K members here have own in the media there

Well if the RAN are looking for something to push there patrols out then maybe a River B2+ would be a good fit say a RB2 fitted with a 3D radar plus 1 x 57mm and 2 x 25mm and Pods for other tasks

How about the RN and RAN working together on a RB3 to fulfil the role in both Navy's.

That was quick, puts UK in the shade

GarethDavies1 wrote: ↑17 Oct 2022, 14:08 That was quick, puts UK in the shade

Wish they hurry up with the tracked decision